Sonnets: The Burial of the Dead
by lye tea
Summary: One killed and the other lied. Lelouch/Euphemia, Suzaku/Euphemia


**Warning: **This is very wrong.

* * *

**Sonnets: The Burial of the Dead**

_"My love is as a fever, longing still…"_

**i. **

Kings rise and fall  
And princes come taking their place  
Carrying out delegations (splicing hearts one, two, and all)  
They become the fathers in name, in face  
In the world, they conquer  
And to the world, they lie—they smiled  
Sucked and entrenched, a thousand miles past err  
Remade, rekindled, (reviled)  
These are the princes born and sworn  
To take swift, ride fast, and burn out vengeance  
To jar hemispheres and limbs asunder, a-torn  
Only to be marked heedless as dark, dismal legends  
And when these noble-sneering princes rest  
The world will laugh and kindly swears them best.

—Sonnet VCII

When they were young and the world was not wrapped in torrents of disorder and disgust (when she was still alive), he played as her knight _and her prince_. He roamed over meadows and across streams, light and spry, and shouldered the burden of love split two.

One, he brought flowers (and the other premature disease and death). From deep-sought insincerity—blinded and folded and _bent_ to become the genuine, the golden, the grotesque—he smiles at the other and apologized. And meant every word.

_There were no more flowers to be picked._

And so, she believed because it was the virtuous thing to do, because that was who she is, because she wanted to have faith. And like flies to honey, her legs become sticky, her arms pinioned, and body slammed into a crevice into the hive.

"Lelouch, Lelouch," Euphie chanted his name, arms open and eager and waiting.

_Lelouch,_—and hyacinths droop and roses tip, curl in preconceived loops

By the villa (where his mother gazed on cheerfully), he ceased pretenses and rubbed raw his guard. Here, he took Euphie with the left and Nunnally by the right. And sometimes, they quarreled and fought aimlessly over who will marry him.

He scowled and shouted, and they chased relentlessly. Followed him over the meadows and across the steams, into every corner and motionless moment. Everywhere, he saw pink and yellow, two blurs just below the horizon, just past his line of sight.

. . .

Summer is the pitiless state, talking in tongues and breeding hate.

Summer is the barren land, holding under hours and striking misery.

Summer is the dry waste, beautiful in bounty and rising late.

In the summer they were young, Euphemia celebrated her birthday, and Lelouch felt a nasty sensation trickling down. And had an awful feeling—premonition—that summer was a season too cruel and ill.

(The hyacinths turn their heads in the height of summer, freshly dead petals cover the ground as matted, holy sanctuary.)

In the summer they were old, Euphemia died in surprise.

But still, Lelouch's mind wandered back to the villa and the country and all the fields (and all the things he wished he had a chance to say.)

**ii. **

Say not that a lady did massacred  
Say not she stole their love and swore as her own  
Believe true past deeds done as sacred  
Believe true in crimson days and nights she trembled alone  
Her mind stilted, sullied, and sullen  
Convinced so nor fate nor desire nor ire  
Can ever break her name brandished as villain  
No painless, white—the consuming fire  
As all part of a grander, grandiose scheme  
She becomes naught but a vicious ideal  
Out of ashes birthed a deadly, selfish dream  
For the lady lays down her hand to reveal  
A sacrifice hidden underneath  
The funeral pyre and grieving wreath.

—Sonnet LVII

She had a death wish coming, he reasoned it out.

She knew he was Zero but continued ruthlessly, for her own regime, for her own victory. Lelouch had it figured it, had it fragmented and compartmentalized so not to forget (so not to be persuaded).

Euphemia talked of equality and peace and of a nation of two living as one. (Lelouch scoffed.) She was an idealist with no common sense, impractical and _destined_ to be used. And so, it felt so damn righteously good (wrong) to blacken her name and gain himself a new vantage point.

And when he shot her (stupid) she stared at him with her big, lovely eyes asking: _why why why? _Why did she die, why did he shoot.

And he nearly said: it was inevitable (and then remembered that she was already gone).

And it was a shame that she was taken. He would have been "merciful" (the word tasted like soot). He would have carried her body home. He would have given her The Burial of the Dead. The bells would have tolled—for whom they did, for her.

And finally, she would understand. She would see it perfectly clear, in hindsight, in _his_ sight. She would have wanted this.

But it wasn't right, for them, to call her that: The Massacre Princess. She wasn't a massacre, she was a symbol—

which he exploited.

As he did everything else.

. . .

Aboard the Avalon, nimble surgical hands bandaged her down and stuck needles all over her body. They (sterilized, shrewd physicians and nurses) injected her with medications and life-feeding fluids. He begged them to save her, and they vowed they would.

(Even Lloyd stood aside remarkably quiet and uncharacteristically obedient.)

So, when they allowed him inside (after telling him she will die), he thought for a moment it must be a horrifying, gutless joke. She looked so serene, so content, like she was just asleep. Pressing gloved hands against glass, Suzaku pleaded and bargained, thinking she will be fine.

That this was all a big mistake, confusion, _not a massacre_.

That Euphie will lift her head and smile at him and tell him how she will change the world (even though they both knew she never could).

Air stiffened and floors shook, but her body relaxed and became immobile.

. . .

Lelouch discovered the hard way that CC was not particularly comforting. She tried her best, and he took it. But when Nunnally asked about Euphie, nothing else mattered anymore.

He twisted his mouth, contorted minds and breaths, and expelled a child's lie. And Nunnally believed him, just like he predicted. He told her something tragic had happened to Euphie (_so we can't see her anymore_). Nunnally nodded wisely—sympathetically.

She reached over and wrapped her wispy arms around his neck (felt so different from CC's calm embrace). And Lelouch—desperate, frantic, hellish—held her tight to forget. Like a narcotic effect, she dragged him down into false, gratifying ease.

Tranquilized, materialized (an apparition carried over from the sewers of blood), he inhaled through her hair (cast down in drapes) and barely, nearly thought of impervious and nil. And maybe, just once, he could pretend. And perhaps, he could resurrect Euphie if only for a moment.

(Nunnally shivered as cold, snippy wind cut across her bare and empty chest.)

Lelouch smiled darkly and knew everything was all right again.

**iii. **

Dull is an evening meekly spent  
Without dulled aching rust wine  
And long-cast profound, just lament  
As a poet would sit (tricked) to pen a line  
A heathen lord unsheathe his sinning scythe  
Contrasted the tipsy pair stumbling to a mirror  
Bereft of ink or blade or of any sound device  
They feast on natural vainglorious valor  
For their lusted banes one and the same  
One bedazzled of all soothing, rolling wit  
And the other having forfeit a cunning game  
And now their eyes narrowed in gruesome slits  
Rough but unnerved they wallow in lecherous night  
Having been hacked and lost all high sight.

—Sonnet LIV

He is overjoyed to find Suzaku pointing a gun at his head. If he marks and intends to be accurate, Suzaku will never miss. But Lelouch is clever too and has a furtive weapon enshrouded by his cloak.

One shot and they all explode and die.

Suzaku is no fool, recognizes that the stakes are momentous and monumental, and that one fatal move means instantaneous combustion. He shifts his stance (so slight Lelouch almost did not catch it). His heart pounds and his mind rages: _Euphie died because of him_.

But Suzaku does not have the courage (folly) to pull back trigger.

And before the verge of convergence of reprisal of zenith (of reprieve), one spins a fairytale and the other nightmare. And both in thinking he is right, the gun blasts and sends both straight to hell.

(Where there is no more Euphie.)


End file.
